


Cold Luck

by MyriadMusings



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And many background characters., Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Multi, Spoilers: Volume 7 (RWBY), headcanon heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyriadMusings/pseuds/MyriadMusings
Summary: Winter struggles with self-acceptance. Qrow struggles with self-hatred. Clover struggles with self vs. duty. At least they're struggling together.A series of shorts, exploring three of my favs in Vol 7, some canon compliant, some what-ifs, and a whole lot of 'they have two hands'.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi, Qrow Branwen/Winter Schnee, Winter Schnee/Clover Ebi, Winter Schnee/Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	1. Acceptance

“And this is Winter Schnee.”

As Ironwood introduces her to his top operatives, Winter feels it.  _ Validation. Acceptance. Success.  _ Everything she’s dreamed of since she ran away from home. The leader of the Ace Ops takes her hand and shakes it; his hand is warm and comforting, and Winter feels her spirits soar when she’s not turned away.

She almost smiles, but she’s too professional for that.

“It’s a pleasure to meet the next Winter Maiden,” Clover says, and his demeanour is a little too casual for her liking, but she’s in too good of a mood to comment. Clover breaks the handshake and steps back to join his team. A team of five is a strange sight, after being so used to four-person groups, but Ironwood picked these people to work together, and he hasn’t been wrong before. They all stand at attention, looking at her. “We’ll do our best to protect you if need be, until and after the day you get your powers.”

“I appreciate your help,” Winter says, because she knows better than to defend her skills from these people. She doesn’t need to. She will be the next Winter Maiden, and everyone in that room knows it.  Winter may be the youngest, but she’s important. She’s finally important enough to be recognised, not through her name, but through her own efforts. She feels the elation she should have felt on her graduation day from Atlas Academy. Clover seems to pick up on that, and he smiles warmly at her.

Somehow, the corners of Winter’s mouth twitch upwards, just for a split second.

He notices and smiles wider.


	2. Balance

Ever since he found out about his semblance, Qrow’s been orbiting Clover like a satellite, and Clover can’t say he’s surprised or that he minds. The bad thing that comes with a semblance like his own was that it becomes so easy to take things for granted. Qrow is his balance, and he is his. Ever since the huntsman came clean about his semblance, anger and upset just below the skin, Clover knew he had found someone important. Someone he wanted to keep around.

When they weren’t on missions, or even when travelling to and fro to their missions, life felt a lot more normal with Qrow around. It isn’t something Clover thinks Qrow would understand right off the bat, so for now, he decides to refrain from telling him. He decides to let Qrow be liberated by and enjoy the balance first.

Qrow isn’t a pit. Qrow isn’t a burden. Qrow isn’t a danger. He’s a person, and Clover wants him to see it that way, too.

And if the way to that end is to spend more time with him, then, well, Clover isn’t complaining.


	3. Conflict

Winter’s been avoiding him like the plague since their first little spat in Ironwood’s office, or at least, that’s how Qrow sees it. He supposes it’s possible that they’ve both just been busy, but it’s so easy to think that she’d demand to Ironwood to keep him as far away as possible from her. It’s so easy to think that people still want to keep their distance.

So when they come across each other in the hall, Qrow isn’t quite sure what to say.

“...Qrow.”

She definitely doesn’t sound happy to see him and he’s suddenly certain that she’s been purposefully avoiding him.

“If you’ll excuse me-”

“Are you avoiding me?”

He doesn’t know why he says it. Ever since he went sober he’s been so much more vulnerable, especially around the safety net that was Clover, and his fears spill forward like a beacon for Grimm. It’s certainly enough to make Winter stop in her tracks.

“I don’t like associating with drunks, thank you.”

He feels the rage spark. “I’ve been clean for weeks, thank  _ you _ .” Winter scoffs, and the rage flares. “Is that really so hard to believe?” he demands.

**_“Yes!”_ **

Her response is immediate, and harsh, and Qrow wants to yell back, to prove to her, hell, to  _ everyone _ that he’s doing better, but Winter is pushing past him and he has no retort.

Maybe some things would never change… no matter how hard he tries...


	4. Duty

Clover had his orders. So did Winter. Ironwood was the leader, and they were bound by duty to his words. They didn’t have the audacity to question his orders, nor did they want to.

Most of the time, anyways.

He saw it in her face, sometimes, typically before or after he escorted her to Fria. Winters eyes would keep glancing downward to her feet, and her body would droop before she caught herself and walked with her head held high again. Clover admired her resolve to save face and keep the bigger picture in mind.

Unfortunately, he had his own doubts sometimes.

One day, Winter slumps against a wall, pushed to a mental limit, looking like she’s a step away from breaking, and Clover is there. He senses her fear, even though she stays silent, but he has no comfort to give. He feels the same, an almost constant, nagging fear that he can’t shake, that he’s leading a parade to ruin and that he’s honour bound to see it through.

Winter finally takes a few deep breaths and brings herself to her feet. Clover keeps a hand on her arm in case she falls again, and as luck would have it, his semblance soothes her.

She looks at him, eyes hardened again, but still unmistakably fearful. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

~~ After that exchange, Winter would tend to walk closer to him whenever he escorted her somewhere. ~~


	5. Entertainment

“I win again.”

Qrow snorts and slides his cards towards Clover, fingers tapping the table. “Deal.”

Clover raises an eyebrow, but he does as he’s told. Qrow looks at his hand and keeps his face blank. Utter garbage hand, just like last time and the time before. Qrow supposes that it helps his poker face if he always knows what he’s going to get.

His finger stops tapping as an idea comes to him. He raises his eyebrows and glances up quickly at Clover before looking back down at his cards.

He’s bluffed before, but he hasn’t bluffed by breaking his poker face before. His heart is pounding, and he instinctively reaches to his pocket for his flask to calm his nerves before he remembers it’s not there.

He hears Clover laugh, and he wonders if his charade worked.

“Do you want to know what your tell is, Qrow?”

Qrow almost drops his cards.

“Your finger tapping.” Clover nods at Qrow’s hand, still reaching inside his empty pocket. “You wouldn’t have tapped that long if you really did get a good hand.”

Qrow growls and lowers his hand. “You’re no fun.”

“I think you’re a lot of fun.”

Qrow’s heart speeds up again.


	6. Force

_ Penny. Ironwood. Weiss. Fria. Penny. Ironwood. Weiss. Fria. _

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The constants in Winters life revolve around her like planets, or perhaps, they are all planets, moons, satellites, revolving around Ironwood. Sometimes Clover and the Ace Ops, or her sister’s team is included in the system, and they all move at their own speed, in their own sectors, but all a part of the same cycle. Their paths collided sometimes with comets or asteroids or meteors.

Running into Qrow again was an inevitability.

He certainly  _ seems _ different, more on edge and putting more effort into his self-presentation, but Winter knows better than to trust appearances. Still, the way he all but flinches away from her when he sees her is…

“Qrow.”

She can’t apologise, especially if she isn’t even sure if she has anything to apologise  _ for _ , but if they’re going to be working together at some point, Winter knows it’s better to extend an olive branch sooner rather than later, even if he is Qrow Branwen, drunk huntsman extraordinaire.  Winter knows, in her heart, that she can’t envy him anymore, not when she’s finally been allowed the knowledge that he’s been given, not when she’s finally trusted as much as, perhaps even moreso, than he is.

She tries her best.

“I have a question for you.”

“Can’t you just ask your boss?”

“He wouldn’t know the answer, but I have a feeling you might.”

His hand flies to his pocket, and Winter is certain she’s going to see a flask make an appearance, but it doesn’t and Qrow just balls his hand into a shaky fist. “Fine. Shoot.”

“The aura transfer machine. Does it hurt?”

Qrow’s eyes widen, and Winter braces for some kind of comment about her ‘cold heart finally melting’ or something along those lines.

“...I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I wasn’t there when Amber…”

“...I see.”

It's a calmer exchange than what she’s used to with him.

“But I can guess.”

And it seems it isn’t over yet.

“To force aura from one person to another… I’d say anything done by force would end up being painful.”

To force things was to cause pain. To force this conversation any longer might cause whatever semblance of patching up their rocky relationship to crumble. Winter nods curtly. “I understand. Thank you.”

She walks away, continuing her rounds, head swimming with new thoughts and understandings. Qrow doesn’t stop her. The meteor passes by the planet, and everyone leaves unharmed this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately I wrote this in a rush.
> 
> Forced, you might say.
> 
> Might rewrite at a later date.


	7. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to wait until I knew what happened in the finale before writing this.
> 
> Two what-ifs and one maybe-it'll-happen.

**1\. Winter**

Against all odds, Qrow finds himself dragging Clover back to the Atlas ships, the other man barely able to breathe. He knows he’s going to end up in custody. He knows he’s going to be questioned. He knows Tyrian is still out there.

He just wants to know that Clover will be okay.

The medics rush to Clover’s aid and the police rush to detain Qrow, and perhaps it’s just another instance of Clover’s semblance edging out his own, but space is so limited that Qrow has to ride in the same part of the ship as Clover. He watches, barely listening to the chatter around him, as Clover’s breathing slowly deepens as drugs are injected into his bloodstream and the flow of crimson from his torso is staunched.

Maybe it’s Clover’s semblance again that makes his eyes flutter open before they touch down in Atlas.

Maybe it’s his own when the first words Clover hears aren’t his own, but a messenger stepping forward.

“Sir, it’s a report from General Ironwood. Winter Schnee has been found dead.”

Clover’s eyes close again immediately and Qrow can’t blame him. His head spins and he’s despondent until he’s dragged from the airship.

Clover is okay. Clover will be okay.

The Ice Queen, whose frosty exterior he had yet to melt, was frozen forever now.

Weiss must be devastated.

Qrow, as he’s thrown into a cell opposite Robyn Hill’s, feels devastated in too many ways to count.

* * *

**2\. Qrow**

Clover’s shoulders feel the weight of the world as he walks through the halls. He is a soldier, duty bound until the end, but the blood of Qrow Branwen is on his hands and the feeling of gut-sinking horror won’t leave no matter how hard he tries.

He has to tell himself that he did the right thing. He trusts James with his life…

As he walks toward the vault where he was summoned, he sees a figure in white dragging her feet. Winter is alone, and Clover doesn’t want to be alone as well. Not now. Not again. He jogs up to her.

“How was your mission,” she asks. Her voice is faint, like they’re somehow miles away.

“...Almost successful.” He doesn’t know how to say it yet. _I killed Qrow._ To say it would make it real, and that’s not something he’s prepared for. He still sees the look of betrayal in those red eyes, fading as the morning light shines across the tundra. “And yours?”

Winter looks over at him, gaze far away. She blinks, and a white aura emits from her eyes. Then she looks forward and replies, “Almost successful.”

Clover knows that they both have blood on their hands. Clover knows that Ironwood is bringing them to the vault to finish off his plan. Nothing feels good, but surely what they’re doing is right…

“Where’s Penny?”

Winter flinches, and Clover knows the answer.

“...Is Qrow in custody?”

As they walk down to the vault, Clover can’t stop himself from crying.

* * *

**3\. Clover**

Winter flies past the closed gates, avoiding any yells her way. Her hair loosens from its bun, flowing down in streams of messy white, and she can’t bring herself to care. She’s finally made her decision. She knows what she wants, and what she wants is the right thing. The right thing to do.

She incapacitates a few guards, feeling wild and rebellious and so,  _ so afraid _ , but she can’t go back. After today, there’s never any going back. She’s a traitor to Ironwood, and to Atlas, and she’ll care about it later. She’s not doing this for James.

She’s doing this for Penny. She’s doing this for Weiss. Most importantly, she’s doing this for herself.

When she finds their cells, she wastes no time in smashing them open. Robyn and Qrow shout their surprise and their questions, but Winter doesn’t listen to them. She pays them no mind. She just grabs an arm on each of them and pulls them along. Eventually, they figure out that a jailbreak is not the best time to be doing a Q&A session.

Fuelled by adrenaline, terror and rage, Winter breaks two convicted felons out of prison, and she knows she’s added her name to the growing list of enemies of Atlas. There's no going back now.

Qrow and Robyn have many questions still, and as they get to a point where they can sit and rest, Winter starts hearing them through the sound of blood pounding in her ears, but even though she has some answers, the ones that have been plaguing her burst forth.

“What happened out there? Why is Tyrian still out there? How did Clover die?”

Qrow looks like he’s been slapped in the face, and the look of utter dismay is enough to make Winter’s already buzzing emotions come to a peak.

One tear falls. She wipes it away. A second one replaces it, and a third, and Winter is crying for the first time since she was a teenager.

Clover hadn’t been her friend, but he had been someone she liked. Someone she trusted.

Even when she feels hands on her shoulder, arms around her back, Robyn or Qrow, she can’t tell, Winter doesn’t feel comfort, or peace. She’s given up everything, all over again, and now she’s too scared to get an answer she was searching for.

She feels so alone.


	8. Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first what-if: Clover survives, Winter gets the Maiden powers, and now they're on the run because they decided not to abandon Mantle.

Even in the shelter of the shack, away from the prying eyes of human, Faunus and machine alike, Winter’s hands tremble as she removes her hood. She looks in the mirror and sees her face, scarred and exhausted, bruised and broken and healing. She blinks, and the smallest flicker of icy blue aura bursts forth from the corner of her eye.

This hadn’t been what she had in mind when she decided to make her destiny her own.

Winter pokes at her face, at her nose and her eyes, and runs her fingers through her greasy, grimy hair. She feels disgusting. 

She feels disgusting like the disloyal, no good **traitor** she is.

Winter hides her face in her hands. When she peeks through her fingers, she sees that she’s spent enough time on the run from the Atlesian military and her former boss that her roots are starting to show. Black like the night, poking out underneath the tangles of white.

Winter feels fake. A fake Schnee, a fake soldier, and not even the Winter Maiden’s powers can make her feel real.

She hates what she sees. Hates it hates it _hates hates **hates hate hate hate hate hate-**_

The scissors are in her hand before she realises what she’s doing. A massive clump of pearly white hair falls down her back, sticking to her cloak before the weight finally brings it to the floor. The scissors fall to the ground and Winter screams.

Clover finds her bowed over, head in her hands and with a half-finished haircut two minutes later, and counts himself lucky that only some hair was destroyed.

His hand reaches out and lands on her back; he feels her tense and then relax. She’s shaking like she’s sobbing but her eyes are dry and wide.

Clover takes the scissors and gets to work.

“I didn’t know you knew how to cut hair.”

Her voice is soft and quavering, but she’s doing her best to seem composed. Clover isn’t there to make her feel worse. He’s in a similar position himself, after all.

“I’ve never been trained, but how hard could it be?”

One hand stays on Winter’s back, as though to remind her that she doesn’t have to feel scared. Not when he’s around.

“With a haircut, I think you’ll be able to walk around without being recognised for a while, don’t you?”

Winter is silent for a long moment, and right as Clover figures she doesn’t want to talk, she does. “I’ve always hated my hair. I got my father’s hair. I’m a Schnee. We’re supposed to have white hair. I don’t want to look like him.”

The sentences are clipped and strained. Clover pauses for a moment.

“If I’m being completely honest, I don’t think you could look less like him if you tried.”

He pats her back once, and Winter remains silent as Clover clips away.

As he finishes the impromptu haircut, Clover steps back and admires what Winter really looks like without the polished shell that Atlas and the Schnee name had forced upon her. Her face is still a mess, she’s tattered all over, and her hair is a small shock of black with white tips covering her head.

“You look great,” he says, and he means it. Winter almost smiles, almost cries, and Clover decides to hug her.

The next day they keep moving out to the rendezvous point where Clover had set to meet Qrow and Robyn. Every day, Winter’s hair grows a little longer, the black overtaking the frosted tips. Every day she looks more alive. Clover’s happy to see it.

_ Besides, he’s always had a thing for dark hair. _


	9. Infinite

Qrow doesn’t believe in miracles.

It makes sense, he supposes, that there would be someone out there with a semblance that counters his own. There are probably a few others like him (poor bastards) and others like Clover (lucky bastards).

He just had never considered that he would actually  _ meet _ one.

Qrow can remember nights he spent awake, staring at the ceiling or at the stars or at the bunk above him and thinking about all those poor souls like him and feeling an odd mix of pity and disgust. He remembers thinking about the fortunate and feeling resentment.

Meeting Clover had blown all those feelings out of the water. Qrow is certain that, were it anyone else, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Clover isn’t perfect, but he's pretty great. He's confident and self-assured, maybe a little pompous, but he’s not as far gone as other Atlas puppets. When Qrow revealed his semblance to him, Clover hadn’t looked down his nose at him. He had reassured him, made a joke in good humour, and left him speechless. Clover stayed by him, not because Qrow asked him to, but because that was his choice to make. Clover stays, and Qrow doesn’t ask him to leave. Maybe he’s selfish, but he doesn’t want him to leave.

Clover makes him feel like the infinite possibilities of life aren’t all bad anymore. They aren’t all good, either; they’re a mix now, a full range of outcomes instead of a grey cloud looming on the horizon, one that promised rain and lightning and thunder no matter which way he went.

Qrow feels like he’s dragging Clover down. Like this isn’t an arrangement that benefits Clover in any way. Like Clover is being stifled by his misfortune while he reaps the rewards of his good luck. He still feels like an omen, like the worst possible thing to happen to another human being, and there’s no liquor now to help him forget who he is and what he does.

But Clover still stays, and Qrow hopes he can replace the allure of booze and oblivion.

Maybe with a little bit of luck, he will.


	10. Jealousy

There was a time when her hatred for him had a name. It was easy to define, easy to identify, easy to feel, swelling and expanding inside herself until she thought she might burst.

Winter Schnee had been _jealous_ of Qrow Branwen.

No matter how she thought about it, no matter how she tried to spin the information she had, she simply couldn’t understand why a man like _him_ was so trusted, while she, a model soldier, was held at arm’s length. It killed her to know that General Ironwood talked about top secret matters with him while he downed flask after flask, probably unloading everything he knew on whichever poor bartender had the misfortune of serving him afterward.

But, for some unfathomable reason, Qrow had been trusted, and she was not. So she hated him.

~~ Because if someone like that was at a higher rank than her, then what good was she? ~~

But now, things were different. Beacon had fallen. A state of emergency had been declared. General Ironwood had taken her to Fria, told her everything, and gave her a future to work toward in a sea of uncertainty.  The next time she saw Qrow, they were on the same page, and the scent of whisky was noticeably less strong than the last time she had seen him. Over time, it vanished completely. Her jealousy did, too.

Winter didn’t have a reason to hate him anymore, and that was more confusing than anything else. Hating him had been easy. Hating him had been oddly freeing, an excuse to step out of line, just this once, and charge with an intent that was a little more than just to spar and a little less than to kill.

Winter wanted to keep hating him, just to keep _something_ constant in a world ruled by doubt and worry, but the drive was gone. When she saw him, she would see the same flash of instinctive hostility, but it wasn’t the same.

Sometimes he would nod at her when he passed on by.

Sometimes his eyes were heavy with a look that told of suffering far beyond what she could guess.

Qrow looked like a real person now, not a living caricature of everything Winter hated.

She hated him for that, instead.

~~ She hated herself, too, for never seeing it before. ~~


	11. Kiss

The first time Clover kisses her, it’s a simple peck on her hand, but it’s still enough to unleash an avalanche of emotions behind her carefully cold exterior.

It’s foolish, really. He smiles at her with that charming, disarming smile of his as he lifts her hand and bows down to kiss the back of her hand, like some kind of prince or knight from one of those fairy tales she used to read to Weiss when they were children, and the worst part was, it worked. Even though she wasn’t a real princess and he wasn’t a real knight. Even though he had kissed her glove and not her actual hand. Even though they were coworkers and this was about as far from professional as they could get without being obscene.

Winter feels her face and her chest flush with heat and her tongue ties and she can’t even berate him for what he’s done to her. She gapes, like a fish out of water, as he lets her hand go, and even then the weird spell he has over her doesn’t break.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises, still smiling and absolutely not sorry in the slightest. “It was just too perfect of an opportunity to pass up.”

Winter’s mouth closes, then opens again. Her hand stays suspended in midair, and Clover’s smile grows bigger.  It’s almost hard to look directly at him, and yet she can’t look away.

“Sorry,” he apologises again. “I’ll give you more warning next time.”

Winter feels like she’s been stunned. “Next time?” she’s finally able to say, and Clover looks away, still smiling, looking nervous, and damn him, Winter is not prepared for that, either.

“If you want a next time. Can I bet on it that you do?”

He isn’t wrong. Winter’s face burns red as she pushes on past him, and she hears him laugh as he follows.

* * *

The first time Qrow lets him kiss him, it isn’t an intense, emotionally-charged moment like Clover had been expecting. He had been expecting fire and brimstone, the aftermath of a bloody battle where tensions were high and the elation of victory brought them that one extra step closer. They were Huntsmen, after all. A good fight brought out the best in them, helped them free themselves from their inhibitions. Clover had certainly seen it enough in his training days, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he and Qrow turned their ambiguous relationship into something more defined.

He’s been clear in his wants, in his intentions. He’s brought their faces close before, he’s touched their noses and their foreheads together, and Qrow would look frightened and Clover would know that it wasn’t going to be then. That was fine. He was willing to wait.

He likes Qrow a lot. He wants him to feel comfortable and safe and ready. All Qrow has to do is give the okay and Clover will give whatever Qrow is willing to take. He’s prepared to wait months, a year if he has to.

But it happens one night after they eat dinner together. It’s so mundane that Clover barely registers that Qrow doesn’t look scared this time. Nervous, certainly, but not scared. Their lips touch in a gentle, cautious way, almost as casual as their meal. They touch a second time. Then a third. Qrow’s eyes close and Clover misses looking at them, so he closes his own.

The fourth one lingers.

There is no fifth. Not yet, anyhow. Qrow seems to think he’s pushed his luck enough, clears his throat, and walks away, bidding Clover goodnight.

“Same time tomorrow?” Clover offers, and Qrow stops in his tracks.

“...I’ll be here,” he finally responds, and he sounds so far off his game that Clover feels a glimmer of pride.

“Looking forward to it,” he calls back, and Qrow stumbles over his own feet as he leaves.

Clover falls just a little more.

* * *

Their first kiss, or, well, first kisses, aren’t what Qrow had been expecting.

Granted, he hadn’t expected them to kiss at all. He had entertained the idea, once or twice, that the Ice Queen could be melted with a kiss, but this isn’t at all what he had imagined.

They’re arguing because of course they are. They’re yelling because what else can they do? But something is different now. Maybe it’s the lack of booze. Maybe it’s the fact that, if they do fight with weapons, they’ll be punished and knocked down several pegs by Jimmy, and neither of them wants that. Maybe the Ice Queen has matured a bit, learned how to use her words, because she lets loose painful personal information that stabs through Qrow’s heart like an icicle and leaves him cold.

Winter looks like she wants to turn back time, to rip the words from the air, but they’re out now and Qrow has never wanted to kill Jacques Schnee more in his life.

He’s never wanted to hug Winter Schnee more in his life either, and the feeling is so foreign and strange to him that he almost does, and his hands land on her shoulders before he realises what he’s doing.

Winter looks like she wants to kill him. Qrow kind of hopes she will.

He kisses her cheek instead.

He can’t apologise. Not to her. It’s not how they do things. Somehow, a kiss feels less weird than the words “I’m sorry”.

Winter blinks, multiple times. Qrow’s afraid she’s about to cry.

Instead, she grabs his hair, pulls him down, and presses their lips together for less than a second before letting go.

“You can do better than that,” she snaps, and she’s not about to apologise either.

Qrow thanks every deity that he can think of that he isn’t drunk right now, and that’s possibly the strangest part of this whole exchange.


	12. Learn

Clover hums a light tune as Winter finishes preparing her reports to complete the next day. The soft scratch of pen on paper and the whistle of the highlighter as it marks important bits of information to revisit create a base for him to weave a tapestry of sound off of. The melody grows, building off of what he’s given and what he’s providing, and it sounds pretty incredible, if he does say so himself.

“I never took you for a musician,” Winter remarks, tone almost conversational, though her eyes never leave her work.

Clover pauses the song, storing it away in his mind for later. “My parents were,” he says, bracing his hands on his knees as he leans forward, voice hushed as though revealing a secret. “The cello and the piccolo in an orchestra. I’d fall asleep hearing them play, and when they could, they would get me a ticket to the symphony to hear them perform. Sometimes the venue would be booked and I’d have to hang out backstage, but the acoustics weren’t as good there.”

Winter almost smiles, and it makes him grin. “I can imagine.”

Clover leans back in his chair again. “You can also imagine that they weren’t thrilled to learn that I was planning on joining the military, but…” He flicked his charm, somehow still maintaining his grin. “That wasn’t their choice to make.”

That makes Winter pause, and her eyes flick up from her work. There’s an understanding in her look that Clover hadn’t anticipated, but he’s very happy to see it. “I see,” she says, before going back to the documents in front of her.

Clover looks up at the ceiling, still smiling, and reprises his tune. The sounds of office work reprise with it, until a frustrated breath from his coworker distracts him.

Winter is scribbling on the side of a document with her highlighter, but it seems as though the tool is out of fluorescent orange ink. The specialist caps it, tosses it into the trash, opens her desk drawer and searches around for another. A second orange highlighter is in her hand only moments later, and Clover regards it curiously.

“Don’t highlighters usually come in packs of five colours?”

Winter’s hand stills for a split second before she’s back at her job. “I just so happened to have a second one lying around,” she claims, sounding far too forceful, and Clover wants to know _why._ “Besides, I prefer having all my work coded in one uniform colour.”

The Ace Ops leader supposes that makes sense, but the way Winter said it seemed so… _off._ Not to mention, she keeps glancing up at him, cheeks faintly pink.

Clover decides to take a lucky guess. He’s always been good with those.

“Orange is a great colour, if you ask me,” he says, and Winter’s cheeks flush just a little bit more. “Lots of great things are orange. The sky at sunset, pumpkins, tangerines-”

“The sooner I get this prep work done, the sooner we can start on our field mission,” Winter reminds him, and Clover holds his hands up in surrender, but he has his answer now.

Winter, pale and grey and white and blue, wields her orange tool with grace and precision, eyes combing over black and white text with practised diligence and bringing out what needed to be seen with a splash of vibrance.

Clover tries to imagine her with a touch of orange on her person.

He thinks it would suit her quite nicely.


End file.
